Operation Flashpoint Elite: Crave's Cold War crisis

By Guy Cocker on 12 September 2005, 10:23am

Operation Flashpoint: Elite may not be due for release until November in the UK, but Crave was treated to an exclusive first look at the game when we visited Codemasters' HQ recently. The original Operation Flashpoint was a massive hit with PC gamers and critics when it was released, but as that was all the way back in 2001, Xbox gamers may not have any prior knowledge of the franchise. Elite is set for a budget release on Xbox, offering the original single player game, a new unlockable prequel campaign and multiplayer skirmishes.

Although the PC original has been available for a long time, the game couldn't have arrived at a better time for Xbox Live gamers. Battlefield 2 is currently keeping PC gamers glued to their monitors, and the team-based combat of Operation Flashpoint: Elite will strike a similar chord. Operation Flashpoint is even more realistic, though -- it was one of the first games to claim use as a US Army training aid, which has subsequently become something of a seal of approval for realistic shooters.

Instead of throwing us in like lambs to the slaughter, Bohemia Interactive's Marek Spanel talked us through the nearly finished build while one of the product's testers expertly navigated the battlefield. The single-player campaign is set in 1985 during the Cold War, with your role being to assist the US Army against Soviet forces. The level we saw showed just how open the game is to various tactics, as the playtester went in with his team to execute a mini regime change. The playtester showed us how you can take cover while organising via simple commands through the Xbox joypad, before going in to assist his team with some of the dirty work. He then got into a jeep -- just one of the game's 40 land, sea and air vehicles -- to traverse one of the 100-square-kilometre maps.

Clearly the game had been played to death by this particular tester and we didn't see him come close to getting shot. Operation Flashpoint is from the Full Spectrum Warrior school of realism -- one shot is all it takes to remove you from the game. Even if the computer AI seemed realistic, it will still be eclipsed by that of a real human player, and Bohemia stresses that this has been the main focus of its overhaul. Cooperative play over Xbox Live worked well for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and it looks like it will add even more longevity to Operation Flashpoint thanks to the 60 missions you can play in this mode.

Codemasters said that it has given the game a complete graphical overhaul, but as it was never a visual powerhouse to begin with, the game looks seriously dated on Xbox. The game has been an extremely long time in development, and in recognition of this, Operation Flashpoint: Elite will be released at a budget price.

As well as shedloads of new missions, there have been some smaller additions in this too, such as the ability to customise soldiers right down to their facial details. We doubt a real soldier would worry about his five o'clock shadow when faced with a real theatre of war, but at least you can turn your commander into a virtual war hero version of yourself.

With 750,000 registered users on the Operation Flashpoint website, interest is still there for the game, and there's no doubt that the Xbox Elite version is a substantial package. Whether what is essentially a four-year-old game can compete with the advanced delights of Battlefield: Modern Combat is yet to be seen, but we won't have to wait long to find out, as both games are released before Christmas. -GC